


Introspection

by Ivyvory



Category: Mabinogi (Video Game)
Genre: Internal Monologue, Other, mentions of other important characters in the storyline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:08:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22380832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ivyvory/pseuds/Ivyvory
Summary: Soll takes some time away from everything.Set between g23 and g24.
Kudos: 7





	Introspection

**Author's Note:**

> Strongly recommend having the Scuabtuinne BGM playing in the bg when reading this for setting up the mood.
> 
> Side thing, I've made this my first work written in present tense, kind of? It was a nice challenge.

He awakes with the feeling of sweat in his back, and the moons casting their light in the sky. Soll blinks away the last drops of drowsiness, slightly uncomfortable.

Perhaps it hadn't been the best idea, to fall asleep with thick clothes in such a warm area.

He can't sleep without some protection anymore, though. Despite the relative safety this place offers, it is too much for him to sleep anywhere without armor these days. Shifting, the milletian feels a bone crack as he sits up. How long had he been sleeping?

...Perhaps too long. Maybe too little. He doesn't feel rested at all. He rubs his face with a hand, to ground himself instead of laying back down for more sleep. Movement ahead of him, a familiar blue color, makes him look at one of many Far Darrigs on the beach, waving a new trinket found awashed to its comrades.

He didn't consider it trespassing on the deity's ship if he was invited. At most, at least, he does not try to go back to the center of the isle. It's part of his... promise? Deal? With the lord of the seas. Even if the man is supposedly not here anymore, he sure would know if he betrayed that promise. He doesn't want to test a god, especially when this one was the first that had not antagonized him on sight. Not in a long, long time at least.

He likes Scuabtuinne. No other place gives him this sense of peace, not like it does. Iria's beaches are either too cold or too rocky. Uladh has Cobh, too busy, and Ceann, too quiet. Not to mention the litter.

Here, he has the sound of the wind, the waves crashing on the shore, and the distant voice of the Darrigs to keep him company.

Vasyarya, behind him, purrs lowly. He turns to pet the Cerraunus, feeling a light static pass through him. A moment later, the creature disappears back where it comes from, wherever that is, its duty fulfilled. Another, perhaps unneeded, safety measure. If it puts him at ease, though, what's wrong with it?

It is the same logic he uses when he stretches and stands up to prepare another campfire. Warmth is unnecessary in the tropical heat, and he hadn't felt genuinely hungry in ages.

The memories of when he was feeling like he starved, when he was still a fresh, newly born milletian, were only vague recollections by now. The energy of the sun and the moons fill him up, and he can go without eating for months at the time. It doesn't mean he cannot appreciate food, though, far from it.

It makes him feel a little more alive when he does, less tethered to the Soul Stream. Less of a soul, less of a ghost, and more like a living being.

A small fire quickly rises up from the wood he set down in a small hole in the sand. Ahead, at the horizon, the sky turns paler, Palala to rise soon. This is another particularity of the isle; unlike the rest of Erinn, its dawns and sunsets are tinted green, not purple. The color gives an eerie vibe to the beach and its waters.

He likes it. 

Perhaps it is the effect of the magic hiding Scuabtuinne, or something else. A different location, a different position line than the surroundings of Belvast or Iria, making Palala's light shine differently, maybe. It doesn't matter, really. Staying on this beach was like staying in a dream he didn't want to wake up from.

Nothing can reach him here. Not anyone else's requests, or problems, or even the endless tasks they delegate to him.

This, this was just him fishing, cooking, and sleeping. More sleep than the rest, honestly. When he does not, he makes more fishing rods off the palmetto trees. He doesn't need fancy bait, so just some insects and smaller fish does the trick.

He makes his own handicraft kits, using materials washed ashore and remnants from the wrecked ships that are still usable. The beach is loaded in resources the Darrigs cannot or do not know how to utilize. All to avoid leaving the isle at all. He cooks from scratch, only using spices when he can produce them himself or take them from one of his pets's bags. Most of what he eats is seafood, just like the fish currently grilling on a stick.

It is nice, playing shipwrecked, in a sense. It makes him focus on small things at the time. Upgrades to the Darrigs's small shelters with big leaves to keep them (and himself) dry under rain.  _ Proper _ shelters, while he is at it; the Darrigs were mostly left to rest under the forest at the center of the area whenever rain comes.

When he feels like it, he even plays a little bit with one of them. Mostly rock-paper-scissors. Keeps their evenings warm and happy with some string-plucking of a lyre, and a campfire going. He makes songs on the fly, not really remembering the notes and simply improvising tune after tune. From happy, quick-paced notes to slow, calmer tones. The Far Darrigs aren’t the most difficult audience to please.

He  _ doesn't _ have to do all this, but it gives him some peace of mind.

But ultimately, it is just a fantasy.

He never is in real danger. Nothing can kill him. Not drowning, not thunder, not starving. All he does is waste his time in some make-believe dream that he is fully isolated from the rest of the world. He knows it well.

He shares the cooked fish with the Darrigs, to not waste the meat. The smell of grilled fish and salt wafts around the campfire, until the wind blows it all away. This is most of the time he spends with the creatures; when eating.

None of it ever fills him right, but it is nice to taste something else other than the tart taste in his mouth after sleeping.

The fish are quickly eaten, and the Darrigs leave him alone once more in favor of playing.

Instead of doing anything productive for now, he simply lays back and looks at the sky.

In doing so, he takes a look at two weapons he keeps with him. Two familiar weights, taken a while ago.

The dragon knight's sword, and Tarlach's staff.

He usually used a chain blade now, but it isn't always the case. He's still partial to magic and close combat. But he does not use these weapons as his first battling choice.  He still isn't completely over what happened to those two. Knowing it was a dumb feeling to have, but there is no helping it. That was why he only makes use of those weapons rarely, or if at all.  In the staff's case, he used it in his battle against the god of the seas. Sometimes, too, for more benign things. It was the only thing the mage left behind after the battle at Renes. 

Tarlach had no need for this staff anymore, not with what that red goddess did to him. Is it a boon, or just one more curse? Only time would tell. The milletian grew a resistance against the type of attacks the Cessair used on him, and he doesn't have the charm Akule crafted anymore, but the one embedded in the staff is probably what protected him from that weird possession the Vate's apprentice had tried to use on him.

He's grateful for that.

For the sword, it isn't that he can't wield it. Rather, he can't bring himself to.

His vision in the cave of trials back then was wrong. Ruairi? Wanting to be like him? That can't be what the real one would have said.

Some hero he is. Everything he does only seems to ripple into a bigger mess. Erinn's residents can give him any title, any sort of praise, but he still falls short. The only thing he has going for him is this immortality. If not for that… he likely would have died permanently a long time ago.

The sword reminds him of Ruairi's failures. His aspirations, his dreams, all crumpled by wills other than his own and the man forced to trash them.

But it also reminds him of his own failings.

He can't protect the people most close to him when they need it. Often, he is the very source of their problems.  He can always try harder. That's what he tells himself. He should try harder.  What use are those memories he keeps seeing otherwise? If he can watch what others live through, why can't he change it?

He saw more of Tarlach and Ruairi's life than they probably ever have known of his own. He knows where Ruairi comes from, and how he had become a lost warrior, way before the two even met in person. Tarlach managed to ascend beyond his old master in power, but now with him changed to a shy kid, there was no more common ground to share with him. It isn’t his place to burden the child with memories of his past life either.

Despite having conversed with Talvish in that strange time vacuum, it is ultimately what he shared with the other that made him attempt to pave the way for another deity. He still has that scar, even if it fades slightly with each rebirth. It's likely that it will take a long time to completely disappear, if it ever does.

He wonders if there is a point to keep doing this. If, after everything, he can't just settle down and disappear from public view. Would he even be remembered? Most of the tuathans tend to forget him if he does not pay them a visit at least once a year - in his perspective.- 

The one person he usually confides to would forget him, eventually. That's just how it is. Even now, Soll was avoiding him. Knowing how any confrontation would go. 'You need to better take care of yourself' and the like. He knows that it always makes him worry in turn, when he seems to neglect himself. He admittedly feels bad for that. Making others worry for him -a nigh immortal, unkillable being- that is. Is there even a point to keep trying? To keep helping? Can he just stay here, or in his homestead, forever? Avoid any strangers, any owls calling for help?

For a while, he only focuses on the sound of the wind and the waves on the shore, closing his eyes. Vasyarya is summoned again as an afterthought, its warmth helping him keep some of his.

He falls asleep again, dreaming of people long gone and memories that do not belong to him.

When he next wakes, it is night again, the campfire long gone to ash. The moons shine once more, as well as the many stars in the sky.

Stars. Milletians. Were they all up there, just waiting to come to Erinn, too? Temporary visitors, or permanent residents?

He reached a hand towards them, thinking. Maybe one day, one of them will have an answer for him. Why he has to keep going. Maybe it won't even be a milletian, though he hardly sees it being likely. He'd eventually outlive anything that isn't another milletian. Where would he be, then? With twisted morals, like Talvish, or still focused on the finale, no matter the means, like Vayne?

They both were such extremes. Both tried -or still try, present tense- to use him as a tool. He closes his raised hand into a fist with a small frown. He's sick of being used. What  _ could _ he do, though? He's a walking danger to anyone the more powers he takes. Manannan hadn't been serious in fighting, but he can easily see that while still out of his league, he can slowly but surely stand proper against Erinn's gods.

He has already seen the result in the way the former Vate and her apprentice regarded him before they were both put down. Being feared by enemies is favorable, objectively. But if he went haywire, would there  _ be _ someone to stop him?

With both hands in his lap, he thinks he prefers the silence than the sea of thoughts.

He ignores the message sent to him by an owl.

Pretends he doesn't notice it. The letter stays in his pocket, unopened.

Time passes, and he mostly watches the sky, never leaving the island.

Above, more and more stars shine brighter before they fall down.

**Author's Note:**

> If you read this well haha hope you liked reading 2000 words about one OC really sweats


End file.
